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Date: | Mon, 4 Apr 2022 00:28:50 -0700 |
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While searching for information on Ain Fijeh aka Figia, or The Fountain
of Balaam's Ass, I was reading Robert Regan's article /The Reprobate
Elect in The Innocents Abroad /and found the notion that the Pilgrims
did not actually have an aversion to traveling on the sabbath. Looking
at the schedule of The Long Trip, it seems they had no problem traveling
on the subsequent Sundays - 9/22 and 9/29. They just wanted to get to
Damascus.
On further reading this article I find that Sam, Dan and the Doctor did
not visit the zoo in Marseilles and that the "gray-bodied, dark-winged,
bald-headed, and preposterously uncomely bird" came from a "fabulous
bestiary."
Sabbaths have a long history with Mark Twain, particularly his
relationship with GW Cable. I had long held the Twain's writing on long
ride to Figia on a par with Huck's moral dilemma. Both are fictions yet
both represent truths. But then that preposterous bird was just a
device to prepare the reader for future descriptions of the Pilgrims. So
it goes ....
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